Arthur Ratburn
by robacsam
Summary: D.W once went back in time to make herself the older sibling. However, someone else adopts Arthur first. Taken from "D.W's Time Trouble" and the opening dream from "The Rat Who Came to Dinner".
1. Chapter 1

D.W had made herself an only child through time travel, therefore she was prefect since she couldn't be compared to anyone else. However, being prefect gets boring with no one to be prefect over. So with the help of her best, and most make-believe friend, she decided to go back to the baby store once more. But the store was massive with rows and rows of crying, cooing, mewling infants. Even if half the store was blue for boys, it still left a lot of work to wander through and find Arthur.

At the same time wandering through the store was, Nigel Ratburn . He was intended on going to buy a presant for one of his sister's new children, maybe a rattle or music box (infact he still had a sliver rattle in his pocket he intended to buy), nothing large. But the salesman man insisted he at least look back here before the man ran off on some emergency.

Rows and rows of baby boys, many with perspective parents for them, but then down one way, with out any shelves came more infant sounds, a strange high-pitched mix of crying and laughing. Always a curious rat Nigel had to follow the sound. He found it quickly at the end of the hall, the sign said "keep out", but his heart said go forward. Nigel figured that, if he just opened the door it wouldn't exactly be going in and breaking the rules.

What he saw behind the door made his heart break enough to ignore the sign! Rules be damned! For there, amoung old signs and empty, dirty bottles was a baby aardavark with perfectly brown fur and round ears and the tiniest little eyes. Certainly he was in some from of...,feeling, Nigel found it hard to tell what as the baby screamed. He was scooped up in seconds, diaper, yellow shirt and all.

"There now, it's alright little cub, I'm sure youre alright. " he rocked the basket just a bit and the baby let out this small burp before it got quiet, rather pleased with himself the rat smiled. He did so a bit close to the baby and got one of hus whiskers pulled. After letting out a yelp, Nigel reminded himself this was a child and calmly explained in an almost cooing manner;

"We don't do that in the future little cub- I'm not rewarding thr behavior but hopefully this will discourage it." And from his pocket he gave over the rattle, it was a smiple spare shape that matched the blue booties the aardvark cub wore. He gave it a few shakes as before the baby took it completely and giggled. Nigel even found himself chuckling, until the nervous salesman's shadow came over the two. He wiped his brow on a handkerchief as he came closer and Nigel held the baby to his chest for safety.

"I am so sorry about leaving you back there- what's that?"

"Just...a baby." Nigel couldn't lie. He showed the salesman the cub for just a second. It didn't like being against Nigels chest,since he couldn't shake his rattle.

"Oh! That baby, you don't want him he's broken."

"Im sorry?" Nigel blinked.

"He dosent behave like the other babies-"

"So?!"

"Sir, we have much better babies one more your...shape." the salesman tried "we just got a whole mischief of rat pups in-"

"This is the one I want." Ratburn said, ever firm in his soft voice. The salesman had to cave, but he warned Nigel about their no return policy.

Soon, the teacher found himself swaddling an infant as he filed out some papers, he was stuck on one question as the cub started to cry again, Nigel just held him closer as he could only thing of A- things running through his mind. Maybe it was in a daydream as he panicked over the life-changing choice he made, but he saw a crown somewhere and the first king he thought of whose name started with an 'A'?

Arthur.

The little aardvark cub was named Arthur Timothy Ratburn.


	2. Chapter 2

'I really should have planned better', Nigel thought as he looked down at the infant, finally asleep in his bassinet. He now wore hand-me-downs, in a light blue sweater with a white collar, a red bow tie, a cloth diaper, and bright red shoes and blue socks. It had only been a few hours and the house was a mess from a few feedings, and of course Nigel having to get things out of storage. There were boxes of baby clothes and few old useable things covering his sofa, and bookshelf, and one small table under the pictures of those like Nana Ratburn, his sister and he as children, and their parents. Nigel took one look at all of the, well, rats on the wall, smiling upon the room and he fought very hard not to chuckle. He hadn't even told them. How would he tell them? His sister, Rodentinia, at least had her husband still, even if it was a little rocky. The closet Nigel got to a date lately was two years ago when he had an outting with a dog named Frederique, they had some dinner, saw a movie Nigel couldn't remember, had some coffee and- well, the rest wasnt to be told in polite company, certainly not even fit to even remember probably in front of his new son. His son- even if it would be hard to explain, he smiled at the thought of it. Like the pictures on the wall Nigel smiled down at his son. He moved slowly to not wake the boy as he scooped him up, resting the little boy on his chest, the small hand gripped the fabric of Spooky Poo on Nigel's weekend shirt as the ra leaned back into his armchair.

"You know, "broken" as they say or not, you have very good taste, Arthur." Nigel said gently, his voice would never dip into baby-talk, that could only hurt the child's development (his mother used to say that to Nigel's aunt, she had roughly six children and each ended up with varying speech issues. The twins being the only one thst couldn't be blamed on baby talk going on too long) and addressing the boy by his name would probably help him learn it sooner. He never could figure out how the baby store kept track of all the children, numbers seemed too much like Ayn Rand's Anthem for his taste. Removing his shoes, Nigel put his feet up on the ottoman and closed his eyes for just a second.

When they shot open again, his wrist-watch was going off and there his sister stood over him with a frown holding her own baby. She did not look happy, and it was very hard to make unhappy.

Then a panicked went through Nigel as he sat up with no baby on his chest.

"You were suppose to be by at 2, and you didn't answer,Nigee." She said, shockingly very stern. But the second crying came from her bundle her voice changed to a high pitched cooing,

"Ooh dont worry baby, mommy's not mad at yoo, just dumby Uncle Nigee." She said rocking it, Nigel would've rolled his eyes, but crying started from the bassinet and he breathed a sigh as he scooped the boy up. There was no way hed let Aunt Rondentia babysit unless she was the last sitter on Earth.


End file.
